Anger Alters the Chemistry of Armenian Protest

By FELICITY BARRINGER, Special to the New York Times

Published: July 11, 1988

MOSCOW, July 10—
''Our young women greeted the soldiers with flowers when they came in a few months ago,'' a Yerevan resident, Samson Tomazyan, said today, a few minutes before he rose to address an angry crowd gathered at Moscow's Armenian cemetery. ''They won't be giving them flowers anymore.''

On July 5, the sporadic violence spawned by a resurgent territorial dispute between Armenia and neighboring Azerbaijan came home to Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. A 22-year-old demonstrator killed and 36 were wounded during a strike that shut down the main airport for at least 24 hours.

That death, following the killing of Armenians in the Azerbaijani city of Sumgait in February and the mysterious release of toxic fumes in an Armenian factory last month, has helped change the emotional chemistry of the demonstrators in Yerevan.

''We are doing everything we can so that there won't be a confrontational psychology,'' said Zori Balayan, a journalist who is a member of a council of older, respected Armenian intellectuals formed to help mediate the dispute. ''But it will be very difficult.'' The hundreds of thousands of peaceful demonstrators who gathered in Feburary, optimistic that a decades-old dispute would be resolved by democratic means within the Soviet system, are now less orderly and less disposed to good will as they confront Soviet soldiers who have shown a willingness to use force.

The description of the clash at Yerevan's Zvartnots Airport offered by the evening news program ''Vremya'' last week painted a picture of an unlawful act by an unruly mob who damaged the economy of the area and put women and children through grueling delays. Armed soldiers were shown in arguments with demonstrators, but no violence was shown.

The images of the clash evoked by words and photographs at the Moscow churchyard cemetery today were very different. Helmeted soldiers held aloft clear plastic shields and brandished truncheons. According to a witness, they gave a 30-second warning to unarmed demonstrators conducting a peaceful sit-in in the airport registration area, and attacked them with truncheons even before the 30 seconds had run out.

''Worse than Chile!'' the churchyard crowd yelled, as clenched fists rose and fell. ''Out with the murderers!'' Dispute Over Territory

The funeral of the 22-year-old victim on Thursday brought hundreds of thousands of Armenians into the streets, Mr. Balayan said, and heightened anger over what they considered the cursory treatment of the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute by the recent special conference of the Soviet Communist Party.

He noted that leaders from the head of the Armenian church, Katolikos Vasgen I, to the Armenian Communist Party's new general secretary, Suren G. Arutunyan, have gone on Armenian television expressing opposition to the airport demonstrations and condolence for the victims.

In addition, in his televised address Saturday, published in the Armenian newspaper Kommunist today, Mr. Arutunyan expressed his conviction that the central Government in Moscow would soon reach a decision on what to do about the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region, a predominantly Armenian area under the jurisdiction of the Azerbaijani republic.

''There is a very complicated psychology now,'' Mr. Balayan said. ''We have to make sure that mistakes don't breed new mistakes.'' The airport confrontation, he added, ''was like the last drop. Things have changed in the sense that it's essential to solve the main problem, Nagorno-Karabakh, immediately.'' A Duel of Legislatures

In Feburary, the enclave's legislature voted to request reunion with Armenia, an action that prompted huge demonstrations of support in yerevan, and a vicious outburst of anti-Armenian violence in the Azerbaijani city of Sumgait, where at least 32 people, most of them ethnic Armenians, were killed - some on the street, some in their apartments.

The first trials of those responsible, conducted in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku, produced guilty verdicts with sentences ranging from 3 to 15 years. Outraged Armenians demanded a change of venue.

Since then, the Communist parties of both republics have replaced their general secretaries. In June, the Armenian legislature voted to ask the Supreme Soviet, the national legislature, to approve the transfer of Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. Also immediately after that, the Azerbaijani legislature voted overwhelming disapproval of such a move, leaving the Soviet Government at a constitutional impasse.

Throughout much of the territorial dispute, Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, has been the scene of persistent strikes and disruptions. But until last week, virtually all the violence reported had taken place in Azerbaijan. Change of Mood

Late last month, that changed, as a mysterious substance was released in a garment factory in the small Armenian town of Masis, and 47 people were hospitalized with nausea, dizziness, weakness and coughing.

Crowds in Yerevan's central Opera Square, already upset by the failure of the Communist Party conference to offer more than cursory attention to the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, put forth four demands: reuniting of the territory with the Armenian republic, a change of venue in the Sumgait trials, an investigation of the Masis incident, and full press coverage of all events relating to these issues.

In fact, national television coverage noticeably increased last week, and the venue was changed in the Sumgait trials. But by then, violence had already come to Yerevan. A City in Mourning

According to speakers at the Moscow cemetery today, Yerevan is now a city bedecked in black flags and wearing the garb of communal mourning. ''Women are wearing black kerchiefs, cars are constantly honking their horns,'' said Mr. Tomazyan, a factory engineer.

A day after the airport takeover, two confrontations occurred. In one, on the road to the airfield, soldiers fired plastic bullets and a young man was killed. In the other, first within the airport building and then outside, soldiers set on the protestors with truncheons, according to Mr. Tomazyan, who said he saw this second confrontation.

Today, the newspaper Kommunist reported that a criminal investigation of the fatal shooting was under way, according to Mr. Balayan.

For the Yerevan demonstrators, who had for months kept their large-scale protests peaceful, this violence cut too close. ''Five thousand people buried one person,'' Mr. Balayan said. ''Some say our people are used to spilling much blood. Now they won't forgive a drop of blood.''